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Stephen Tippett

Stephen Tippett in Coyhaique, Chile – Plaza del Pionero

I am the founder of EstudiaChile and author of this website. My interest in international education has developed since graduating from college and working as an NGO field worker in Ibarra, Ecuador for WorldTeach, Inc. The experience was so ‘transformationa’ that I extended the program duration and stayed two years as an English teacher and community resident. It opened my eyes to a new world.

My exploration of international education continued as a graduate student at Teachers College, Columbia University where I studied in the anthropology and education program. As one of the premier graduate institutions of education, and housing the largest group of practicing anthropologists of education, I learned about the international education field from a social science perspective. My intuition was that instructional technology is the space where some of the most important innovations in education are being made, and for that reason I devoted most of my work to learning instructional technology. For example, Reach the World is an organization that focuses on globalizing the curriculum of public New York City schools, and I both taught instructional technology and multicultural literacy classes through their program, as well as devoted my study in anthropology toward this applied focus in international education.

My work at Teachers College was punctuated by my second passion, Chile.

I was fortunate enough to find program manager position in the English Opens Doors, International volunteer program. In this English education development program, supported by the United Nations Development Program, Chile I discovered my talent and passion for leadership and organizational work in educational services. This education development program brought native speakers to work as assistant teachers in Chilean public schools. Our team of managers recruited volunteer participants, trained them in the methodology of language instruction and supported their work as language resources in their schools and local communities. It was a true pleasure to help make this organization be successful and impact the lives of people, both the international volunteers and the students and teachers in Chile.

Indeed, equally as lasting as the advances that we made in bringing English into the lives of thousands of Chilean students, were the changes that were made in my career and perspective. I have been, at heart, Chilean ever since.

In 2012 I started working at Arcadia University, at The College of Global Studies, helping to manage IT and academic technology for its study abroad programs. At Arcadia University I developed and taught two new study abroad courses that emphasized intercultural experiential learning. One of these courses was an embedded study abroad course about Education Policy in Chile and the course combined a service learning project for students to volunteer as English teachers in a refugee center in Philadelphia and study about international volunteerism in Ecuador. These experiences, and my doctoral research, provided me a vision about what international education and study abroad contributes to students and to an institution.

I currently work for the State University of New York, helping to train professors in our method of curricular internationalization, Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL). In January 2016 I was hired to manage a project to set up and implement 40 new international course collaborations between universities in Mexico and the USA. COIL provides a low-cost, innovative, and authentic pathway for students and instructors to interact with their peers around world through a modality not available in the past, by establishing online intercultural communication channels.

As an actor in the higher education and international education field in Chile, I have contributed to numerous programs and organizations and my experience spans the breadth of the language education field, in government institutions, private universities, research institutions, foundations focused on education and human development, secondary schools, and more. I am eager to share my experiences, expertise, and contacts in Chile, and I encourage anyone with similar area interests to contact me.